10 Gargantuan Things Made Solely For Killing People

Demetrius Poliorcetes ('Demetrius The Besieger') was the son of Antigonus Monopthalmus ('Antigonus the One-Eyed'), who in 305BC was in charge of a chunk of what is now Turkey and the Levant. The island of Rhodes was annoying the father and son duo so Demetrius went to besiege it (hence the name). But he didn't want to just take Rhodes - he wanted to look good doing it. He assembled a fleet of wacky seaborne siege engines and constructed the Helepolis ('City-Taker'), a gigantic siege tower more than 40 metres high which needed over three thousand men to push it, Uruk-Hai style. It was covered in armour plates and bristling with catapults, and generally stood there showing everyone who's boss.

With grim inevitability, the helepolis didn't work, at least not against Rhodes. The Rhodians either pulled its armour off and made Demetrius withdraw it, or they soaked the ground in front of it so it got stuck. Either way they took it apart and used the bits to built the Colossus of Rhodes, so that's something.